A/N: OMG I WENT FROM 64 TO 102 REVIEWS! THAT'S LIKE, 40 REVIEWS! FOR ONE CHAPTER! ! Tee hee I'm all smiley now. I read EVERY SINGLE review, and I was like giggling the whole time cause you guys are fun-ny. Pfft, you thought Gale killed her babies. You should've seen the look on your face! Except, I didn't see it either because, you know, this isn't facebook or anything. Fanfiction is WAY COOLER than facebook. Free virtual invisible chocolate chips to anyone who agrees! :D
Disclaimer: I do not own da book. Da one by da Suz-anne.
PS: This chapter doesn't have a song. If you read you'll know why
PSS: For all of you who read this chapter when it was first posted, you will notice that it has changed. So if you did read the original, you can just skip down to after Katniss is like, "So my baby is going to die?" This will be mentioned in the next chapter as well.
I was running. Everything around me was black, and a feeling of danger overflowed my mind. I had to get out of here, out of the darkness. I had to find the light. Suddenly, the floor below me vanished. I braced myself for the fall into who-knows-what, but nothing happened. I was standing on air. I tried running, and the feeling was amazing! I was running on nothing, just space.
I saw something in the distance. As I grew closer, I saw it was a light. Finally! I could escape this darkness.
"Katniss!" I heard. The voice was coming from the light. I ran faster, and saw the outline of a man. Even though the light was too strong to see his facial features, I couldn't ignore the bright blue piercing through the rays of light.
"Peeta, I'm coming!" I yelled back. I was full-out sprinting now.
"Katniss," I heard a low voice say behind me. I skidded to a halt and spun around. There was Gale standing there, the blackness covering his figure. I could just make out his face and torso. But he was holding something in his arms. I took a step closer, and gasped when I realized what he was holding.
He was holding a baby in each arm. I didn't have to think twice to know that those were my babies.
"Aren't you going to save them Katniss? You've already killed so many people Katniss, the least you could do is save your own children. Or are you going to run to Bread Boy again?" Gale sneered.
"Katniss! Please! Come here," I heard Peeta shout.
I was at crossroads. What should I do? I had to help my babies, but this was all so confusing! I don't even remember giving birth. I don't even know where I am!
I had just realized that this was a dream before the air holding up my body disappeared, and I felt myself falling down into the black abyss of darkness. I was falling, and falling, never landing. It felt like hours before my back made contact with a cold, metal surface, and…
I jolted awake. My eyes flew open to see a cracked white ceiling. My mind registered that I was lying down, but I didn't know what I was lying on. My vision was a little clouded, so I had to blink a few times before I could see properly. I looked to my right and saw Peeta who, sitting on chair, had a grip on my hand with both of his and had his head bent and eyes closed.
"Peeta?" I mumbled groggily.
His head shot up and his eyes flicked open. I could tell he had been crying. "Katniss, you're awake!" he exclaimed. His hair was messy and slightly damp, and his eyes looked sullen and sad.
I was about to ask what happened, when the memory of Gale's visit slapped me in the face. My eyes quickly scanned the room, and I noticed that I was in a hospital room. One thought immediately popped into my head.
"The babies," I gasped. "Are they ok? Are they ok Peeta?"
He dropped my gaze. "I shouldn't be the one to tell you," he mumbled. I could see tears begin to form in his eyes again.
"Peeta, tell me! If something happened to them, of course I'd want it to be you to tell me," I pleaded.
He sighed. "Well, about a half an hour ago, they did some tests while you were asleep to check the babies. They haven't gotten their results yet, but…" he trailed off.
"But what?" I asked exasperated.
He looked at me again, and I could see a tear trickle out of his right eye. "The doctor says that there's an eighty percent chance that at least one of them died."
The room suddenly began to spin. Tears began clouding my vision, and I felt Peeta tighten his grip on my hand.
"Katniss? Katniss calm down!" What was he talking about? I suddenly snapped back to reality, and fell with a thud onto the cold metal below me. My vision refocused, and I looked down to see my hands violently gripping the tissue paper on the bed, already having torn it a bit. I relaxed my hands and my breathing, which was abnormally hard and raspy. I suddenly broke out sobbing. I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest, hiding my eyes in the thin paper gown I was wearing. I felt warm, comforting arms wrap around me, and I leaned into them. I cried until I couldn't cry anymore. Until my eyes were cried dry. I lifted my head to look up at Peeta, who was also crying, but kept his arms around me.
"It's happening, Peeta," I choked out.
"What's happening?"
"The whole reason I was always against having kids when I was younger!" I exclaimed. "Everything I ever grow to love ends up being taken away from me! It's my entire fault! I should've defended myself when he shoved me against the wall. I should've hit him, or something, and ran up the stairs to you. I'm so stupid and selfish! I told myself it was my battle to fight and look where I am now. How can you love someone as selfish as I am? My stupid pride killed our child!"
"You don't know that," he whispered in my ear.
"But they couldn't have survived! They were just developing, not even a month old. They were so weak…" I sniffed.
Peeta didn't say anything; he knew when to back off. Smart boy. He just planted a kiss on the top of my head.
We waited a half hour, just sitting silently on the bed with our arms wrapped around each other, before we heard a knock on the door. Peeta hopped off the bed as the door opened. A blonde lady in a doctor's outfit stepped into the room. She had piercing green eyes and little make up. She looked kind.
"What were the results?" Peeta asked the doctor eagerly; whose name tag read Dr. Krolen. "Are they alive?"
Dr. Krolen smiled. "I'm happy to inform you that both babies are currently alive." Peeta and I let out a sigh of relief. The doctor smiled again. "Normally, a woman in your stage of pregnancy would have had a miscarriage, but Katniss here has an unusually strong immune system, and the babies were somehow smart enough to feed off of it, as unusual as that may sound."
Peeta came over to sit by me. His eyes were sparkling. "Hear that, Katniss? Our babies are alive and healthy!"
"Not quite healthy, ," Dr Krolen said, a sad grimace replacing her bright smile. Our heads snapped around to see her.
"W-what?" I choked.
"One of the babies is in perfect condition. Healthy and strong. But the other wasn't so fortunate." She pulled her clipboard out from underneath her arm and looked down at it. "According to these exams it seems as though when you received the blow to your abdomen, one of the babies, the more developed one, moved in front of the less developed baby, almost as if it were protecting it, or blocking it from being hurt. Unfortunately, this caused the more developed baby to receive a fatal hit to the head, the temple to be exact."
I clenched my eyes shut, as if it could block out the pain I was feeling. "So, what you're saying is that one of my babies is going to die soon," I said.
"No, actually," said. I snapped my eyes back open. "You're baby will live, I can assure you, but the blow caused some severe head damage, causing a central nerve in the brain to be damaged." She flipped a page on her clipboard and scanned her emerald eyes across the paper. "We weren't able to see much, since you are only six weeks into the pregnancy, but it seems as though the blow caused severe head trauma.
"We're are not positive yet, but we think that there is a chance for your child to have some extreme symptoms similar to those of a child with a common genetic syndrome."
"Which one?" Peeta piped up beside me, his face creased with worry and nervousness about whatever the doctor was about to tell us.
"Down syndrome."
A/N: I still can't believe you guys thought I was going to kill her babies. Tsk Tsk. Jk I would've thought that too. Also, I'm really inspired by Down syndrome victims. Especially the ones at my school. All the guys will laugh and point at them in P.E., and I just think that it's so mean because those special ed. kids are the sweetest things ever. More virtual chocolate chips for everyone who has a friend or knows someone and is nice to someone with disabilities. :)